A post shared by ELLE Magazine (@elleusa) on May 11, 2017 at 6:05am PDT

Missy is Elle Magazine‘s cover girl for the June issue. In her accompanying interview with the fashion mag, the hip hop renaissance woman dropped some fascinating gems about the inspiration behind her puffy black suit. “To me, the outfit was a way to mask my shyness behind all the chaos of the look,” Elliott tells the magazine. “Although I am shy, I was never afraid to be a provocative woman.”

Though shy is never the first word that comes to mind for this boundary-pushing artist/producer, Missy says she had no qualms about her vision for this look. “The outfit was a symbol of power. I loved the idea of feeling like a hip-hop Michelin woman,” she explains. “I knew I could have on a blow-up suit and still have people talking. It was bold and different. I’ve always seen myself as an innovator and a creative unlike any other.”

Countless other artists have jumped on Missy’s creative and futuristic wave – most recently American designer Marc Jacobs who shouted out his fave for wearing his Fall/Winter 2017 collection in the shoot.

A post shared by Marc Jacobs (@themarcjacobs) on May 10, 2017 at 8:48am PDT

You super-fans may remember that Missy was actually the face of Jacobs’s Fall 2016 campaign. “From the moment I heard, ’The Rain’, back in 1997, I was entranced by the genius rhythms and brilliant rhymes of Missy Elliott,” Jacobs wrote last year on Instagram. “It was a dream of mine to work with her and I’m happy to share this portrait by David Sims for our Fall ’16 campaign.”